Civil Defence

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 July 1967.

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Photo of Mr Julian Snow Mr Julian Snow , Lichfield and Tamworth 12:00, 20 July 1967

With your permission Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will reply first to the question put by the hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) about the expected availability of trained personnel under this scheme. I do not think that I can give him the precise answer that he wants, because I do not believe that the information is available. He will be interested to know that the total membership of the St. John Ambulance Brigade and the British Red Cross Society is about 94,000 trained first aiders. Of these, about 26,000 have a commitment to the National Hospital Service Reserve, and other members will have other wartime commitments. The actual numbers of members of the two societies whom local authorities can assume will be available for their first aid services cannot be estimated at this stage, but they will clearly be substantial.

In a war emergency the strength of the societies will be augmented by the thousands of trained first aiders who are not members of the societies. It was because of that consideration that I mentioned in my original speech that we have the great benefit of a vast core of industrially trained first aiders who, outside their normal working hours, would undoubtedly, as they did in the last war, come forward for volunteer work. I accept at once that what I have been able to tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not in the form he requested. I should like to consider his question and see whether I can get the information at a later date.

I want now to refer to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Horner). He will accept from me that the sort of situation that he has been postulating, aided by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes, is precisely the sort of atmosphere which prevailed in the years immediately preceding the last war, and when we saw pictures and heard accounts of the devastation caused by high explosive bombardments during the Spanish Civil War. I well remember people asking then—and I do not mean this as a criticism—"What is the use of doing anything? We shall be absolutely obliterated. Let's pack up".

Thank Heaven, wiser counsel prevailed and, feeling as I do about nuclear war and the horrific casualties, I can well understand people saying as my hon. Friend said, not just that this scheme was hopeless, but that any scheme was hopeless.